


Misbegotten

by eldritcher



Series: Red Falls The Dew On These Silver Leaves [7]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:08:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celebrimbor is mourning his father’s death following Doriath and Gil-Galad is a lonely orphan in Círdan’s castle caught in the throes of post-adolescence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misbegotten

Artanáro - Gil-Galad’s High-Elven name  
Carnilótë - Maglor’s wife

 

 

Misbegotten

 

The day after the tidings of Doriath had come to us found me standing in the courtyard, contemplating the dreary skies and the striking resemblance they bore to my murky dreams of the previous night. Silver clouds tinted with darker spots hung heavy over the land, waiting for some portent ere they unleashed their torrent upon us.

“Celebrimbor!” 

I sighed as I heard the haughty, young voice. Gil-Galad was the last person I had wanted to meet. Fate was absolutely against me, I decided.

“I am glad that your father is dead!”

He did not bellow, but his voice was not pitched low either. My guard, selected for my escort by my father himself, menacingly glared at the young bastard of my uncle. I had never understood why Círdan had taken him in or why Carnilótë lavished her time and attention upon the misbegot lad. 

Artanis loathed Gil-Galad, as had my father. As for myself, I preferred to stay away from my family as much as I was allowed to. Maitimo and my father had been equivocal in asking me to join them. But Carnilótë had proved my ally and Maitimo did not attempt further persuasion, he was notoriously keen on accommodating her wishes though I had never comprehended why that was so. 

But I had loved my father deeply, and to hear the bastard who had not known a father’s hold over his heart vilify the memory of the man I mourned propelled my anger forth and I turned to face him, my wrath writ across my features.

He gulped, but continued recklessly, “He deserved to die! All of you deserve to die! How many have you killed?”

He spoke in Sindarin and I ventured a guess that he might not be proficient in the tongue that was my last connection with my golden childhood. 

“Fetch Carnilótë,” I murmured in Quenya to my guard. 

“He deserves a thrashing, and a sound one at that,” the guard said darkly. 

I shrugged and he did not speak further, instead hastening away to fetch my aunt who held sway over this hot-headed youngster. 

The lad continued his imprecations about my descent and about my forefathers, conveniently forgetting the doom that chased me equally bound him to the Void. I concentrated once more upon the grey skies and wondered how we had all fallen as low as this. 

“I hope he rots in the Void!” Gil-Galad spat, his body trembling and his voice shaking in white rage. 

That undid the tight rein I had over my temper and I asked him coldly, “What right have you to judge one as high born as my father was?”

“The right that comes of having hands clean of kinblood!” He retorted, his tone vehement. “Can you boast the same, kinslayer?”

I frowned. I had never killed an Elf. In fact, it was my stand on that issue which had prompted me to choose my path away from my father’s side. But that did not mean I failed to understand why my father had slain. I had seen for myself the grief that had haunted him till the end. His first kill had been a Telerin Elf who had killed my mother at Alqualondë. If I had a sword then, I would have done the same. 

“You will not speak of bloodied hands when you know nothing of what we lost, bastard!”

He flinched and his eyes narrowed. I cursed myself silently. I did not need to have the wisdom of Artanis to know that the fire burning in his eyes was set on making me pay for that insult. Círdan had once or twice remarked to me in passing that the lad loathed his origins.

I was about to hurry off to the castle and find Carnilótë myself when he advanced upon me, a sword in hand. The metal gleamed under the silver skies and I knew immediately, from the assured way he held it as an extension of himself that the blade had tasted blood before. 

“I duel not with barely of age lads,” I said truthfully, mellowing my voice as to undo the insult I had dealt him when spurred by his harsh words.

“But I duel with those I hate,” he barked, and tapped the flat of his sword against my scabbard commandingly.

I was taken aback by his daring. But then I reflected dryly that it was Findekáno’s bastard that I faced. Findekáno had never lacked for courage or reckless valour, excepting in one matter that had ultimately proven his undoing. 

“Put your sword away and we can talk like civilised men,” I told him, my regard for Findekáno staying my wrath though the lad undoubtedly deserved to pay for his censure of my father.

His eyes darkened, resembling his father’s gaze when the latter had been drunk insensate. His swordhand came up, easy and elegant, I noticed abstractedly, before it delivered an insulting swat, with the flat of the weapon, across my behind. I jerked and jumped forward instinctively, coming flush against the heaving breast of the bastard, only to have my ears reviled by the sound of his triumphant laughter.

“High born does not mean dignified, does it?” he taunted,

It undid my control and I drew my sword, pursing my lips and glaring at those dancing dark eyes that scorned me. 

“I shall teach you what it means,” I swore. And he laughed again.

The heavy, silver doors above opened and rain drenched us. Our blades did not sing in the steady patter of rainfall, but our hatred and wrath echoed back and forth as grunts and insults were exchanged, finesse and restraint snapping away for brute strength and techniques that even Easterlings might not stoop to. 

He was a force of nature, his tunic soaked to the skin and tautening the youthful grace of his well-muscled body that resembled his father’s strikingly. More than once, I often found myself harking back to the days of old when Findekáno had taught me to wield my sword with his customary enthusiasm and good cheer. His son was nothing like him, and that, I reasoned, was because his son was a bastard acknowledged by none but my insane uncle, Maitimo.

My reminiscing cost me ground and he was cunning enough to press his advantage. I leapt back and cursed as his moves shifted from defence from offence. I hated him then, knowing well that I would be defeated. He fought as one possessed, as one who would stoop to any means to claim victory. I, on the other hand, could not abandon my ingrained obedience to the ethics of swordmastery. Who had taught him, I wondered darkly? Círdan, perhaps. I had never seen the Shipwright with a sword. The lad’s moves reeked of the same defiant disobedience that classed Maitimo’s technique. But Maitimo and his lover’s bastard had never got along. So I knew that it was not him I had to blame for my impending defeat. 

“How does it feel to lose to a bastard?” he jeered, tossing his rainsoaked mane away from his face.

The rains broke, the first rays of a revenant sun peeped through the dimming silver shields that barred us from its radiance and I launched forth a desperate assault abandoning all adherence to the laws of swordsmanship once implanted in me by the illustrious father of this low-fighting misbegot.

He held his ground with assured ease, smirking at the desperation so evident in my moves, and then his jaw dropped in horror as I capitalised on what I had noticed from the beginning; the inferior quality of the forged steel that had gone into the making of his blade. My noble steel sent shards of his weapon flying away, their jagged edges shining in defeat in the sun’s renewed glory.

He went still, his hand yet gripping the hilt of the weapon that had betrayed his cause, and his eyes glassy in deep humiliation. His throat worked again and again, failing to produce sounds despite the many attempts. The sunlight made his wet hair glisten as gossamer, his young body carved a picture of awkward grace in the desolate surround and his lips parted soundlessly accompanying the thud of the disembodied hilt to the ground beneath him as it slipped from his numb fingers.

I sighed and lowered my sword. He was a mighty opponent, one I would not win against but by chance fortune. Yet if he persisted on letting emotion drive him in combat instead of strategy, his end would be surely as tragic as his father’s. It was not my concern, I reminded myself sternly. I had escaped defeat by a hairstrand and would be better off hurrying back to the castle and ensuring that I did not set myself in his infernal path in the near future. 

“What would you have of me?” he demanded, sounding terribly despondent and yet brave. 

I frowned. He shrugged uncomfortably and swept a few strands of waterslicked hair away from his forehead.

“What do you want?” he asked bluntly, looking down at the sorry pieces of metal that littered the ground. 

I felt rather than heard his quiet exclamation of horror at the damage. I remembered that I had been young once, waiting for the least word of approval that would pass Grandfather’s lips. Charity and kindness sat ill upon me. But the stricken look in the lad’s eyes as they took in the destruction of his sword proved too heavy on my conscience.

“If you will come to my forge, I can have one of my smiths craft you a new sword.”

He stared at me as if I had sprouted another head. I cleared my throat and repeated my offer.

“Why?” he asked, looking plainly befuddled.

“Because you shall need it. You seem keen on picking fights. Then wouldn’t you rather have the advantage of a reliable weapon the next time?”

He peered at me from beneath indecently long eyelashes. Finally, he spoke quietly, with the calm acceptance of one who has been through such situations more than once.

“You seek to humiliate me before your smiths.”

That someone so young could be as paranoid as this lad surprised me unpleasantly. I sighed and bent down to pick up a lone shard that had fallen beside my feet. My fingers burned as they touched metal and I gulped reflexively.

“Who gave the blade to you?” I rose and stared at him, unable to believe what I had discerned.

“A friend.”

He lied, that I knew instinctively. And I told him as much. His eyes widened and he took a step backwards in silent alarm. 

“I need to know,” I demanded again, by then quite worried by the hesitant fear lurking in the hitherto brave gaze.

He rallied, as I had suspected he would. But his next actions were confounding, to say the least. He launched himself upon me, throwing me down to the muddy ground, laughing as a groan of pure pain escaped me, and wresting his hands into my hair before downing his head to bite my lips. In vain did I attempt to throw him off, for his position served him great vantage and he utilised it with relish, pinning me down with his legs ensconcing my thighs and his strong upper body atop my own. 

My fingers sought out the pulse point in his neck and pressed down, a cheap ploy, but one I believed that I was entitled to at the moment. He stilled and pain flashed in his eyes. I took the chance to swat away his face using my spare hand. Awareness rushed through his gaze and he gasped.

“What possesses you?” I snapped, alarmed by the penitence that ravaged his features all of a sudden. He uttered a single, wretched sigh and buried his face in my neck. 

“I am sorry,” said a muffled voice that was startlingly unlike the one that had taunted me into a duel.

“You should be,” I muttered, bringing my fingers to my lips and wincing at the blood that their touch drew. 

We remained as we were, with his face still reluctant to give up its nest in the crook of my collarbone. Absently, I brought a hand to his wet hair and smoothed it down, mainly because my order-loving mind could not stand the sight of such a mess as his mane constituted then. I had barely begun thinking of this fractiously tempered lad when a question broke the silence.

“Would you make a sword for me, my lord?”

It was not the title that did it. What earned my heartfelt sigh was the achingly vulnerable, mistrusting, frightened voice of the young orphan who had been branded a bastard.

“Only if you promise not to duel with me again,” I said, trying to leaven the compassion by jest. 

He looked up then, his eyes shining in tenuous hope. I forgot all about silver clouds of doom and cursed families. My distraction was furthered when his fingers, trembling and uncertain, hovered over my broken lips.

“Whatever gave you the impression that my lips are nutritious?” I enquired teasingly, revelling in the faint flush of crimson along his cheekbones and the corresponding heat pooling down into his groin that branded heat upon my nascent loins. He was very young and with the fervour of youth, responded rapidly to proximity. 

He shook his head and tried to get up, albeit reluctantly. The longing in his eyes and the tentative trust he accorded me decided my course. I did not prefer men when women were within reach. And I preferred neither when inspiration called me to the forge for months on end. I was busy enough right then, what with Círdan’s army depending on my forge for weaponry. But I had lost my father and the animalistic comforts of blind coupling called out to me. 

I brought my hand to the nape of his neck. He went quite still and the frightened eyes he fixed me with seemed to expect a taunt any instant. I ached for the many times he had probably been in such a situation, only to be scorned and spurned.

And I acted. My lips surged forth to meet his parted ones, teaching them gentleness and courtesy when they had experienced neither before. He gasped into my mouth and fell heavily atop me, seemingly too dazed to reciprocate at all. I did not mind his passivity at all, in fact I preferred it to his mercurial strength that would have been hard to cope with. With experienced hands, I flipped him over and let my fingers play their silent symphony upon his wet skin. He closed his eyes and bit his cheeks to suppress his groans, but he did not succeed for long. I had him writhing and cursing beneath me as I stroked him through his breeches. 

“Don’t!” he hissed finally, turning his eyes away from my regard.

“You don’t want it?” I asked dubiously. All physical evidence suggested to the contrary, I was convinced.

“Don’t leave me unsatisfied as everybody does.” 

The quiet words were torn from his lips and misery flashed in those perpetually haunted eyes.

“Then they were all fools,” I remarked, before drooping to whisper into his ear, “I, being eminently sensible, plan to act differently.”

He frowned, his cheeks flushed with arousal, veins throbbing in his throat, his groin demanding satisfaction.

“Ah, yes.” I nodded to him. “I shall first unwrap your glorious body from this sorry excuse for a tunic.” 

I matched word to deed, drawing him up and slipping the tunic away from his torso, leaving his upper body naked to my gaze. He swallowed and remained still in my hold, his eyes free of pretensions and holding only fear.

My boudoir skills had been crafted with patience through trial and error of centuries. I did not hesitate as I pressed my lips to his neck and moved downwards steadily revelling in the expanse of the wet skin that warmed under my ministrations. He sighed as I pushed him down again, and voiced no complaint when I undid his breeches and pulled them off. I briefly debated letting him undress me, but wryly decided against it since I believed that I had endured enough of his rough handling for the day. 

I disrobed hastily and my gaze feasted upon his sprawled body all the while. It had been long since I had seen a male in the aroused nude; not after Túrin, I reflected reminiscently. 

His eyes were upon the long scar that ran along the length of my left calf. 

“A souvenir of carelessness with a poker,” I told him. 

His fingers tentatively, curiously, carefully came to touch the white line. Pleased that he had abandoned his rough ways for refinement, I knelt beside him and took his face in my hands, drawing him into a deep, lingering kiss in the course of which I explored his eager mouth thoroughly tasting most ardently of the heady mix of bravado and fear that characterised him. He was short of breath when I relinquished his lips and the insecurity in his eyes had given way to need. 

I brought our groins in line and moved against his sweating body, revelling in the grunts that escaped him as pleasure burnt a liquid path through the blood in his veins. I would have engaged in more, but I remembered that I knew nothing of his previous brushes with intimacy and that the easiest was the best right then. I brought my fingers to his manhood and stroked him with fast, clean moves. He panted, gasped, cursed and finally threw his head back, his face contorted by the capture of passion. I spread his essence over my palm before ministering to myself and following him to orgasm as rapidly as I could.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I recovered and found him with closed eyes and panting torso. I gripped his forearms in a gesture of reassurance and carefully lifted myself off him. He groaned in protest. I suppressed a smile as I cleaned off the stain of passion from my body with my discarded tunic and then sat down beside him. The first tug on his hair earned opened eyes. He understood what I intended, but refused to believe. I tugged again and he sighed in compliance before shifting his head into my lap tentatively. 

I threaded my fingers in his hair and stroked the mane. 

“Thank you,” he whispered in a small voice.

I bent to kiss his forehead and he sighed again contentedly. 

“Don’t bite Círdan,” I advised. “He would die of heart failure.”

He snorted, feeling secure enough to grab my wandering hand that was picking trails on his chest. I let his hands clasp mine in a firm grip. He reminded me of Artanis during her moments of vulnerability.

“I haven’t bitten anyone like that before,” he finally confided.

“I am honoured to be the chosen one,” I teased him.

“I...” he trailed off. Then he began in a quieter voice, “You were the first one to offer me anything.”

I felt that stab of pity again. My first gift had probably been when I had been too young to retain memories. But I had collected pebbles. I had tried to talk with animals and birds for my family were always too busy to make time for a young, curious child. Yet I did not doubt that they had all loved me; that those who remained still loved me.

“Sometimes families behave strangely,” I said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t know, having never known one.” His voice was colder than the Helcaraxë, which was the greatest horror I had lived through.

It was then that I realised I knew nothing of him. 

“Turkáno, your father’s brother, lives in the Hidden City. Otherwise you would have been sent to him,” I said reassuringly. “And my uncles are landless. They think it is best that you stay with Círdan.”

“I hate the Fëanorions!” I raised my eyebrows and he modified the sentence saying, “I hate the Fëanorion whom my father loved. He is the sole reason why I am an orphan and a bastard.”

I did not know what to say. Maitimo was the reason why Findekáno had never married. But certainly, it was not on Maitimo’s suggestion that Findekáno had sown his wild oats throughout Beleriand.

“Does your mother stay here?”

His eyes darkened and he shook his head firmly. I read guilt within them. The corruption of the shards that I had touched earlier, the heavy reek of kinblood that I had discerned then - I gasped in horror as I realised the reason behind his guilt.

“She married. I wanted her to return to me,” he said hollowly, tears glistening in the sunlit eyes. 

“Whom did you slay?” I asked, horrified by his tale. 

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Him first. Then the children. She threw herself in the way when I tried to get to the children. Said she could not live without them. That I was nothing more than the unfortunate result of a night’s forgettable passion. That she had forgotten me and moved on, as my father had done. It angered me beyond everything. I wanted her to,” his voice broke utterly, “to love me. I don’t know what made me do what I did after that.”

“You fool!” I cursed, before drawing him to me and letting him sob wretchedly upon my naked flesh.

He continued miserably, “I buried them. I came back to Círdan and said I had merely been lost on a scouting gone awry. He did not ask more. My hands are tainted, Celebrimbor! I killed my mother!”

“Hush,” I whispered hoarsely. My mother had fallen when defending me from the battle. His mother had done the same for those children she had with the man she loved. But she had forgotten him; the unhappy fruit of a night’s understanding. 

“I deserve to be what I am; a bastard,” he continued wretchedly.

“Nobody deserves to be unloved,” I chastised him. His eyes widened in shock. “Nobody,” I repeated. 

“What will I do?” 

His voice bled as he asked the question. The tears were still clumped to those long eyelashes. I gently thumbed them away before kissing his forehead, trying in vain to recover my calm after it had been shattered by his confession.

“Live well,” I told him finally. “Show those who revile you that you are worthy of love and more, Artanáro.”

“Artanáro?” he frowned, his forehead creasing endearingly in bewilderment.

“Artanáro. Your name in our tongue. It means Noble Fire.” I smiled. “Do you not agree?”

His eyes widened and he turned an intriguing shade of crimson before mumbling a reply I was not destined to hear.

“As Artanáro, I shall start anew then,” he whispered when I kissed his cheek again. “Thank you, Celebrimbor.”

“The name is unbearably long,” I chuckled. “Telpë, shall it be?”

“Telpë,” he tried my name on his tongue and laughed self-consciously under my regard. “Telpë,” he said again with more confidence.

“You shall have practice enough, I daresay,” I teased him.

“I do intend to claim that practice as often as I may,” he said anxiously, gripping my forearms with such force as if he feared I would vanish into the thin air as Grandfather had. 

He would not be broken before he had even started living, I resolved. He would have a friend in me until he no longer had need of that. I cast my eyes to the red orb of the sun and silently swore that I would protect this young lad from the world that called him misbegotten.


End file.
